For National Hot Dog Month in July a number of major league baseball teams featured special items on the concession stand menus, and apparently the Milwaukee Brewers offered a bratwurst stuffed with a hot dog. That got me to thinking of a sausage version of the turducken...

"Thuringer" is apparently the German word for "summer sausage".

I hollowed out the sausage, stood it upright, dropped in the hot dog, and packed the loose bratwurst around it.

The ThurBratDog went on my Weber 22" kettle and the fire was set up with lots of hickory for a strong smoke. After it'd been on for awhile I added the other 7 dogs and let them go until they were done, and they were a nice change of pace from standard grilled dogs.

I was surprised at how much smoke the summer sausage absorbed; I removed the casing before I put it on the grill and it developed a bit of a shell. Also, the loose brat meat shrunk and separated from the beef summer sausage. If I was to try this again I'd strongly consider standard indirect grilling with just a hint of smoke.

I was thinking about the shrunken brat meat and I had an idea. What if you prepped it as before and then stuffed it into a casing? That would likely hold things together enough to prevent the shrinkage, I think. You might not even need to cook it indirectly.

Unlike propane, you'll never wake up scorched and naked in another county because you mishandled a bag of briquettes.

They actually tasted pretty good, although the summer sausage was pretty dominant and less smoke would've been better. My original thought was to use a small bologna chub and in hindsight I think there would've been a better balance of flavors that way.

Good idea about the casing, CG. I considered wrapping the brat & hot dog in bacon but that was more for the effect than any kind of benefit, and I ultimately abandoned it because I didn't think it'd be easy to fit it into the summer sausage.

They actually tasted pretty good, although the summer sausage was pretty dominant and less smoke would've been better. My original thought was to use a small bologna chub and in hindsight I think there would've been a better balance of flavors that way.

Good idea about the casing, CG. I considered wrapping the brat & hot dog in bacon but that was more for the effect than any kind of benefit, and I ultimately abandoned it because I didn't think it'd be easy to fit it into the summer sausage.

You join the group of geniuses around here. We now have Bob, Charred, and The Chicken!Sounds good the way you are - maybe a little less smoke. Bacon around would make it even better. If I have it right, you'd have a bacsumsausbratdogen.